Almost 2,000 student employees cut from federal government in the last fiscal year

Pedestrians make their way along Sparks Street Mall in Ottawa on Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

OTTAWA — The number of students working for the federal government fell almost 20 per cent between 2024 and 2025.

Data provided by the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat shows 9,120 students were employed in the federal public service at the end of March 2024. A year later, in March 2025, that number had fallen to 7,370.

Employees on leave without pay, ministers’ exempt staff, employees locally engaged outside of Canada, some RCMP and Canadian Forces members and some agencies were excluded from the data.

The biggest cut in student employment was at Canada Revenue Agency, which saw its student workforce drop from 1,356 in March 2024 to 268 in March 2025.

Etienne Biram, a spokesperson for the CRA, said in a recent email to The Canadian Press that the decrease can be attributed to the CRA adapting to “financial realities.”

The student population in the public service in March 2025 was at its lowest level since 2017, when there were 6,281 students employed by the Government of Canada.

Nathan Prier, president of the Canadian Association of Professional Employees, said the reduction in student jobs and cuts to casual and term employees that have been underway for years are all part of the “quiet cuts” being made to the public service.

Prier said the cuts are “driven by ideological austerity that blames public servants for a deficit they didn’t cause.”

“Students are often incredibly motivated and innovative team members eager for a career in public service,” he said. “This DOGE-lite approach is decimating the current workforce and jeopardizing the future of the public service by turning away the best and brightest young workers.”

The youth unemployment rate reached 14.6 per cent in July, its highest rate since September 2010, excluding the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, Statistics Canada says.

Earlier this month, Finance Minister François Philippe Champagne said “adjustments” are coming to the public service as Ottawa looks to trim its operational spending in the fall budget.

Champagne said he has received responses from his cabinet colleagues to his request earlier this summer for spending cuts of 15 per cent over the next three years.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has pledged to reduce the number of government employees through attrition, following an election promise to cap — not cut — the public service.

Former clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick said in a recent interview with The Canadian Press that the current wave of downsizing is landing on young people the hardest.

“The path we’re on right now, unless I’m missing something, is falling disproportionately on the younger cohorts of the workforce,” Wernick said.

“They should be trying to save as many jobs as possible of the young, digital, diverse cohorts who bring energy and skills … If that means trying to accelerate the attrition of the older workers, so be it.”

Wernick said young people are valuable to the public service because they’re digital natives who have grown up with social media and are more comfortable with AI than older employees.

“What happens is if you just shut the door for two or three years, which we’ve done before, you create a missing cohort that you feel for years,” he said. “You end up with shortages of middle managers and shortages of senior managers, or at least smaller talent pools.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 24, 2025.

Catherine Morrison, The Canadian Press